MOVIE REVIEW: 'All is Lost'

Thursday

Nov 14, 2013 at 2:00 PMNov 14, 2013 at 2:09 PM

It’s not every movie star who is willing to take on an intensely physical role in the first place. Fewer still are those stars willing to take on a role in which they, and they alone, are the only figures on screen for any length of time. And what kind of movie star would take on a role that, against all logic, fulfilled both of these premises and yet features next to no dialogue? Then again, Robert Redford has never been just any movie star, and at 77 years old has taken one of his most challenging roles ever in “All is Lost.” And he delivers on it considerably.

By Corey Craft | Special to Tusk

It’s not every movie star who is willing to take on an intensely physical role in the first place. Fewer still are those stars willing to take on a role in which they, and they alone, are the only figures on screen for any length of time. And what kind of movie star would take on a role that, against all logic, fulfilled both of these premises and yet features next to no dialogue? Then again, Robert Redford has never been just any movie star, and at 77 years old has taken one of his most challenging roles ever in “All is Lost.” And he delivers on it considerably.

“All is Lost” is the second film from writer-director J.C. Chandor, who made a splash and gained an Oscar nomination for his debut feature, “Margin Call,” a 2011 film about Wall Street and the financial crisis that put together an impressive ensemble waxing philosophically through lengthy monologues about the nature of greed. What a 180, then, is “All is Lost.”

Redford stars as our unnamed protagonist (he is listed in the credits as “Our Man”). Aboard a yacht some thousands of miles away from land in the Indian Ocean, disaster strikes when the boat collides with a floating shipping container, which punctures the hull right near the sensitive radio and electrical equipment. While Redford can repair the hull, things quickly go from bad to worse and then even worse still as the lonely yacht is overcome by a massive storm, and our fellow must fight against increasing odds to stay afloat and survive.

“Life of Pi” minus the animals would not be a bad comparison, yet as ornate in its ideas and dialogue as Ang Lee’s Oscar winner is, so is “All is Lost” stripped down. We get the barest hint of our man’s backstory in a voiceover near the beginning — and that’s it. We don’t know anything about him. In fact, apart from that voiceover, he has maybe two or three other lines in the movie. Who would he be talking to anyway? It’s all furrowed brows and grim determination here, without the exposition, flashbacks or cuts away from the boat to lessen the tension. It’s a bit like “Gravity,” the technological marvel currently in theaters, in that way.

But Redford holds the screen as only a master actor can, keeping the audience invested in our man’s struggle the entire time, even as all hope seems to fade and Redford’s flinty resolve starts to falter. It’s even more resonant given Redford’s age and the baggage we have with our shared history, having watched him through virtually his entire life on screen, from a very young man to an older man playing a character likely nearing his end, no matter what he can contrive to delay the inevitable. Even without the movie star baggage, it’s a stunning, daring performance that demands a lot from Redford. It’s obviously thanks to him that “All is Lost” stays afloat at all, but the risks that Chandor takes pay off in a fundamental way by proving that compelling storytelling can jettison everything but a basic scenario and, in the right circumstances, be every bit as gripping.